


Echoes of War

by panther



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depression, F/F, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 05:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panther/pseuds/panther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione shuts down after coming back from Australia. The Ministry remains in chaos and it isn't safe for her to start work in the Wizarding world but she doesn't feel she belongs in the Muggle world either. For lack of anything else to do she becomes Head Girl and returns to Hogwarts, lost within her own mind and with only one person willing to keep trying to pull her out of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes of War

Hermione shuts down after returning from Australia with her parents. Everything catches up with her, crashes into her like a tidal wave, making her bones ache with fatigue. The Ministry is still being put back together, supporters of the Dark Lord who were not marked being weeded out and interviews of those who claimed to act purely out of fear seem endless. It is not safe for Hermione to join the workforce just yet, she is told, and really she is just too exhausted to argue. Her parents can't look her in the eye, don't trust her in the slightest anymore, and flinch any time Hermione pulls her wand out. It had lingered around her as a student but now more than ever she feels caught between two worlds, not quite fitting in with either. 

It isn't time to get a job in the Wizarding world and given she doesn't want to live there it seems pointless to get one in the Muggle world. When she is offered the chance to go back to Hogwarts she goes because she has nothing better to do with her time. The badge on her chest feels heavy, more like a burden than anything else. For years she had aspired to it but being Head Girl doesn't seem so important after you've destroyed pieces of a madman's soul and helped to save the world. She almost feels it should go to someone who wasn't so involved, who still sees school as the pinnacle of their achievements, and then she remembered the war was inside the walls of Hogwarts too. She takes classes with people who have been forced to torture their classmates and has no idea which ones of them enjoyed it and never told anyone. Now that it is all over she realises how much of her life had been directed towards ending Voldemort. She had to be the best because Harry needed her. It wasn't all about school like she thought. Now, she only has school and it seems so simple and easy compared to the outside world. 

Ginny and Luna return with her, both jaded and uncertain. They have memories of a different sort to deal with upon their return. Luna is happy to be back at the school but there is a distance between her and Hermione that wasn't there before. It is not a distance created by lack of understanding or frustration about differences, but one of guilt. Now she knows her father sold them out, and even if she was found in the same prison, the scar on Hermione's arm still feels a little like her fault. She had listened to Hermione's screams and they still haunt her dreams. 

She watches as Hermione retreats into herself, keeps her hand down in classes and hands in assignments on autopilot. She only ever seems alive when an owl arrives from Harry, but he is busy training and they are rare. Ron, she has never forgiven for leaving them. While Luna's dreams are of Hermione screaming, the Gryffindor remembers guarding a tent containing their only leads, one wand between them, and little hope. 

For someone who fought for this world they are living in, it doesn't seem to Luna like she is enjoying it and so she vows, 'If you won't save yourself, then I'll have to do it for you'. 

Too bad Hermione doesn't want to be saved. Part of her enjoys the lack of contact from her parents, the absence of their bi-weekly letters with school owls because she feels she deserves it, deserves the silence. She decided that because she was a witch and they were Muggles that she knew what was best for them and that feels too close to something else, something darker and evil. 

Luna attempts to insert herself into Hermione's life. The house tables don't matter anymore and people sit where they like or where there is space by the time they appear. There are Ravenclaws who would rather sit with the Hufflepuffs they fought Death Eaters with than the housemates who fled. Hermione has taken to drifting towards a different table with every meal and it takes her until dinner time to notice Luna is happily following her around the hall. 

"I don't think I'm that great company, Luna."

"No, you're not really. But that is why I'm sitting here," Luna replies serenely before serving herself some pudding. Hermione looks at her for a moment and then shrugs, almost to herself. She had never understood Luna before and there is no reason she should now. The blonde's life is easier at Hogwarts than it used to be. There is a certain respect in the air around her now people know what happened to her and how she got through it. She is still smiling, still wearing weird necklaces and occasionally shoes that don't match. War changes everyone and yet Luna is a reminder of before.

Hermione can see what she is doing, the way she is trying to coax her out of her shell like Ginny and so many others have tried since the battle, but she feels numb to it. The darkness pools around her eyes, her dreams are filled with cackling laughter and knives pressed into pale skin, as her image fades from her parent's photographs. Her head feels constantly heavy, her eyes always tired, and though she recognises the symptoms of depression in herself, Hermione doesn't want to do anything about it. 

Still, Luna drags her forcefully from breakfast on Saturdays and out into the sun. Ginny and their other friends are always waiting and Luna pushes her down onto the blankets by the lake and makes her sit with them, makes her exist outside of her own bubble until she stops resisting so much when she is pulled from her seat. She chats to Hermione over dinner until Hermione finally starts answering her, offering up mentions of her own day, and then finally smiling just a little. Luna breaks down Hermione's barriers so slowly the Gryffindor doesn't notice it happening. Then the things Luna says stop seeming so ridiculous. After all, Hermione had never thought there were truly dragons under London's streets guarding vaults and yet that had turned out to be true. Maybe the creatures Luna speaks of exist, somewhere. Hermione isn't so sure of anything anymore. Books had only helped her so far on the run and it wasn't her intelligence that held out against Bellatrix. 

She still reads, anything and everything really, but she becomes the one sitting waiting patiently for Luna to finish her breakfast before taking her hand and leading her from the hall and out to the lake. As the weather gets colder less of her friends come, but they remain with jars of blue fire in old sweet jars perched between them. For Luna, who had spent so long confined, every moment of freedom and fresh air is cherished, and for Hermione, the chill and shivers connect the Hermione who spent the year on the run and the Hermione who now sits in classrooms trying to exist as if it never happened. 

Hermione avoids the common room and spends a lot of time in the Great Hall, library or making herself useful repairing parts of the castle under the watchful eyes of the teachers. It is hard to return to an environment that treats you as a child requiring so much supervision and boundaries when she has lived an adult life and made all the decisions for herself. It allows Luna to spend more time with her and they work together trying to make the castle what it was. Hermione gains respect for Luna's abilities and Luna thinks maybe she is starting to pull herself out of the dark place she had found herself in. It has taken months and she still isn't quite free, but she's getting there. Often, after they finish a section of repairs, Hermione's fingers are coated with dust and dirt and Luna finds that fitting. It is like she is slowly clawing herself free of her own mind. 

"Are you ready to talk now?" Luna asks her, as February gives way to March, and the other students start venturing back out to the lake again.

"No, not yet, but I'm getting there." Hermione smiles, leaning over the grass to kiss Luna softly on the edge of her mouth before pulling back and contently returning to her book. Luna beams at nothing and pulls her fabric and ribbons from her satchel and gets back to working on her newest hat. There is Quidditch tomorrow, and more importantly, there is life after that.


End file.
